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Perhaps, after having spoken so much about the past
history of the Noblesse, I ought to endeavour to cast
its horoscope, or at least to say something of its
probable future. Though predictions are always
hazardous, it is sometimes possible, by tracing the
great lines of history in the past, to follow them
for a little distance into the future. If it
be allowable to apply this method of prediction in
the present matter, I should say that the Russian Dvoryanstvo
will assimilate with the other classes, rather than
form itself into an exclusive corporation. Hereditary
aristocracies may be preserved—­or at least
their decomposition may be retarded—­where
they happen to exist, but it seems that they can no
longer be created. In Western Europe there is
a large amount of aristocratic sentiment, both in the
nobles and in the people; but it exists in spite of,
rather than in consequence of, actual social conditions.
It is not a product of modern society, but an heirloom
that has come down to us from feudal times, when power,
wealth, and culture were in the hands of a privileged
few. If there ever was in Russia a period corresponding
to the feudal times in Western Europe, it has long
since been forgotten. There is very little aristocratic
sentiment either in the people or in the nobles, and
it is difficult to imagine any source from which it
could now be derived. More than this, the nobles
do not desire to make such an acquisition. In
so far as they have any political aspirations, they
aim at securing the political liberty of the people
as a whole, and not at acquiring exclusive rights
and privileges for their own class.

In that section which I have called a social aristocracy
there are a few individuals who desire to gain exclusive
political influence for the class to which they belong,
but there is very little chance of their succeeding.
If their desires were ever by chance realised, we should
probably have a repetition of the scene which occurred
in 1730. When in that year some of the great
families raised the Duchess of Courland to the throne
on condition of her ceding part of her power to a supreme
council, the lower ranks of the Noblesse compelled
her to tear up the constitution which she had signed!
Those who dislike the autocratic power dislike the
idea of an aristocratic oligarchy infinitely more.
Nobles and people alike seem to hold instinctively
the creed of the French philosopher, who thought it
better to be governed by a lion of good family than
by a hundred rats of his own species.

Of the present condition of the Noblesse I shall again
have occasion to speak when I come to consider the
consequences of the Emancipation.